


Nothing Important Happened Today

by IncomingAlbatross



Series: Maybe the Real Mystery was the Father-Son Relationship We Found Along the Way [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father's Day, Father-Son Relationship, Feels, Gen, Tiny Soos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 06:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20223391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncomingAlbatross/pseuds/IncomingAlbatross
Summary: Soos is dealing with his first Father’s Day since he turned 12. The Mystery Shack makes everything better, though, right?Written for Father's Day 2019, cross-posting now from Tumblr.





	Nothing Important Happened Today

When the first Father’s Day after Soos’s Last Birthday Party rolled around (Abuelita didn’t believe him, but he didn’t want one this year and he wasn’t going to have one ever again), he’d hated it. He’d kinda hated everything, honestly–stupid ads for stupid Father’s Day sales, stupid Sunday comics with Father’s Day jokes in them and Father Bishop with his Father’s Day sermon, stupid dads and kids all over the place and _especially_ stupid dads who didn’t even _want_ to be around their (stupid) kids _ever_.

Abuelita had tried to cheer him up, but Abuelita knew what was _really_ wrong and was ignoring it, which meant she _knew_ she couldn’t fix it, so why should he listen to her? So he hid in his room and definitely _didn’t_ cry at _all_.

After the not-crying, he moved into moping. Moping really needed snacks, though… Luckily, he always had some of those around. (Even if he didn’t have _other_ things…) But, while he was rooting through his belongings for a candy bar or a bag of chips, his eyes fell on his prized Mystery Shack t-shirt.

He brightened up a little without even noticing. The Mystery Shack was good. It was always cool, and fun, and he bet Mr. Mystery didn’t care about a stupid holiday like Father’s Day at all!

…And Mr. Pines didn’t mind being around Soos, either. Mr. Pines _liked_ Soos.

(Probably. Soos thought he did…)

After a few moments of deep thought, Soos left his room.  
  
“Soos!” Abuelita said, seeing him. She smiled, a worried smile, and he felt kinda bad that he’d caused it…but, then, _he_ wasn’t the one who left his four-year-old son and never came back. It wasn’t _his_ fault. (…Right?) “Are you feeling any better, _mijo_?”

He went over and leaned against her, just for a minute. (It _definitely_ wasn’t her fault.) “Uh…maybe,” he said. “Abuelita?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t really feel like staying inside. And all the other kids are busy.” _With their dads._ “Could I go to the Mystery Shack? Just to hang out?”

There was a moment’s pause. He was still sort-of-hugging her, so he didn’t see her face, but he heard a thoughtful sigh. Then she said, “If that would make you happy, Soos.”

He hugged her for real, and then ran to find his shoes and get his bike. “Thanks, Abuelita, you’re the best!”

“Yes, yes. I know this.”

He made record time to the Shack, and charged inside to see that, sure enough, there weren’t any Father’s Day sales or souveniers at all!

Beaming, he waved at the man responsible for this oasis. He was sitting behind the counter, staring into space…

Oh, wow. He was staring into space _really hard_. So hard he hadn’t even noticed Soos come in. And he had a funny look on his face…Was he hypnotized, maybe? Soos had heard there was a Nightmare Monster in the woods. Maybe it had hypnotized Mr. Pines into seeing nightmares!

He went right up to the counter and raised himself on tiptoe. “_Hi, Mr. Pines!_” he shouted.

Mr. Pines started so hard he actually jumped off his chair, whirling toward Soos with his hands flailing. Then he blinked, and looked at Soos, and stopped. One of his hands went to his chest, and the other gripped the edge of counter.

“_Moses!_” he exclaimed. “Kid, don’t do that to me!”

“Sorry, Mr. Pines, I’m really sorry!” Soos babbled. “I just, you didn’t notice me when I came in, and you were staring at nothing really hard, and I thought maybe the Nightmare Monster got you so I needed to wake you up!”

Mr. Pines blinked at him, brows furrowed. “Nightm–?” Then he shook his head. “Y’know what, _no_. I’m not even touching that one. Not today… Thanks, Soos, but I promise I wasn’t attacked by any monster, okay? I was just, uh…thinkin’ really hard about somethin’.”

“…Okay,” Soos said, hanging his head a little. “Sorry I scared you, Mr. Mystery.”

“Scared? _Scared?_” Mr. Pines’s voice got louder, like he was giving a tour, and Soos looked back up. He’d straightened, tugging at his tie and grinning down at Soos, with a glint in his eye. “It takes more than that to scare Mr. Mystery!” he scoffed. “I was just _startled_, kid. You got a yell that could–that could start an avalanche, y’know that?”

Soos smiled. “So…you’re not mad?”

Mr. Mystery snorted, reaching down and flicking Soos in the forehead. “Mad? Course not, kid. Don’t be dumb.”

Soos grinned up at him.

“…Hang on,” Mr Pines said, blinking as if he’d suddenly remembered something.

“Yeah?”

He squinted at Soos, looking troubled. “…I thought today was a Sunday?”

Soos nodded eagerly, not seeing a problem there. “Yup!”

Mr. Pines continued squinting, though he looked a little less troubled and a little more plain confused. “I thought your grandma said you couldn’t work on Sundays.”

“Yup, she did,” Soos confirmed smiling up at him. “I’m just here to hang out.”

Mr. Pines blinked, and then raised his eyebrows. “Comin’ here when you don’t even have work?” he scoffed. “Careful, kid. I’m gonna start thinking you actually enjoy my company or somethin’.”

Now it was Soos’s turn to be confused. “I do!” he protested.

“…What?”

Mr. Pines’s face was doing a funny thing. Soos wasn’t sure what to make of it, but he was too busy being confused by his words to deal with his expressions, too.

“Of _course!_” he said. “You’re cool, and smart, and nice, and you know _everything_, and you never yell at me or tell me to shut up, even that time when I talked about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for, like, half an hour, and didn’t even realize you’d fallen asleep because I talked so long! And you always have cool jobs for me to do, and, and, and…”

He stopped–not because he’d run out of things to say, but because Mr. Pines was…kind of staring at him. And not moving.

Oh dude oh gosh oh man…Did he _break Mr. Mystery???_

But then he blinked really hard, like he was an android rebooting his brain or something, and jumped over the counter. Oh, wow, Soos didn’t know he could do that! Soos couldn’t do that, for sure! (Yet, anyway. Maybe if he practiced…?)

Mr. Pines crouched in front of him, putting one big, warm hand on top of Soos’s head. It just about covered his head, Mr. Pines was so big. “Kid, I think you’re crazy,” he said, his voice sounding a little funny. “But…” He shook his head. “It’s a good kind of crazy. I think. Hopefully you don’t…you don’t grow out of it, like the rest of us losers have.”

Soos frowned in slight confusion. He couldn’t really tell if that was a compliment or an insult…but Mr. Pines was smiling, a lot. And it looked like a real smile, even if it was kind of shaky and he was still blinking a lot. So it was probably good?

That decided, he grinned back. “So you don’t mind me hanging around, Mr. Pines?”

Mr. Pines stared at him for one long second, then threw back his head and laughed so hard he cried.

“Mind?” he said after that, wiping tears out of his eyes. “Believe me, kid, you can hang out here any time you _want_.”

Soos’s smile felt like it was going to explode right off his face.

He suddenly had too much happiness, in fact, for all of it to stay inside him. So he did the most obvious and straightforward thing with it: rushed forward and glomped Mr. Pines hard enough to knock him backwards onto the seat of his pants.

“_Thank you!_” he wailed.

Mr. Pines froze stiff for a second, as if he didn’t know what to do.

Then he said, “O-okay.” Really blankly, like…like he was scared? But Mr. Pines wasn’t scared of _anything_, except maybe the cops….

Oh. Maybe…he didn’t like hugs? There were people who didn’t, Soos had been told…

But then Mr. Pines said “Okay” again, more firmly, and then suddenly he was hugging Soos back. He sat there on the floor, Soos clinging onto him, and just…held onto him, resting his head on top of Soos’s head and wrapping his arms around Soos in a tight, strong hug–stronger than Abuelita’s, even–till Soos felt like _nothing_ could get at him now. It felt safe, and secure, like Mr. Pines was trying to keep him safe, like…like he thought Soos was _important_.

Oh, Soos realized, nestling closer to him. Mr. Pines _must_ like hugs, because he was really, _really_ good at them.

Mr. Pines’s breathing sounded funny…but not _too_ funny. Soos didn’t want to ask about it, in case that ended the hug, so he stayed quiet. After a minute, Mr. Pines’s breaths evened out by themselves.

A little bit after that, he let go, pulling back a little. Soos, somewhat reluctantly, did the same.

“Hey, kid,” Mr. Pines said roughly, and Soos looked up at him.

He was smiling a big, wide, real grin down at Soos. “Since you’re just planning on hangin’ out here anyway…you wanna do somethin’ fun?”

Soos lit up. “Can we? Like what?”

Mr. Pines chuckled. “Heck, I dunno, kid. I’m not really doin’ so great in the idea department today, to tell you the truth…How about you decide?”

“Really?”

Mr. Pines raised an eyebrow at him. “Really.”

Soos jumped up, bubbling over with excitement as Mr. Pines, more slowly, got off the floor himself. He didn’t even know what he wanted to do, but he knew it would be _awesome_.

He still didn’t _forget_ it was Father’s Day, exactly…but for the next five or six hours, it hardly mattered. As far as Soos was concerned, it might almost as well have been a perfectly ordinary day on the calendar…

Just another 15th of June.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Father's Day in 2003 was on Stan and Ford's birthday. Double the abandonment issues, right???


End file.
